The market for computer peripherals is highly competitive. In these markets, a large volume of sales is needed in order to be profitable since typically there is a low per product profit margin. In order to obtain a reasonable return on investment, the cost to manufacture the product must be kept low relative to the price of the product. Consequently, the successful manufacture and sale of computer peripherals often depend on reducing production costs and shortening the time-to-market of the products.
In the manufacture of computer peripherals, there are often many components and sub-assemblies that require testing and integration with other components and sub-assemblies. This process, which is generally known as system integration, is further complicated by the fact that these components and sub-assemblies are often manufactured by different parties.
For example, in the laser printer market, one party typically manufactures the print engine and another party is responsible for manufacturing the printer formatter that provides formatting functions to the print engine.
Furthermore, one sub-assembly cannot be completed until all components for that sub-assembly have been received and proper operation is verified with the other components. For example, since the printer formatter is integrated with the print engine, the manufacturer of the printer formatter has a shortened development time. The development time is shortened since the print engine manufacturer requires sufficient time to integrate the printer formatter with the print engine and to verify the proper operation of the printer formatter with the components of the print engine.
As can be appreciated, there are many costs and time consuming steps that are involved in system integration. Accordingly, manufacturers are constantly attempting to find ways to reduce costs and improve the efficiency of the above-described process.
FIG. 11 illustrates a block diagram of a conventional laser printer 1100. It is noted that the printer 1100 includes a printer controller 1104 that is coupled to a print engine 1108. The printer controller is also coupled to a printer controller interface 1118 for connecting a cable 1114 to the printer controller 1104. Since the printer controller 1104 is housed within the enclosure of the printer 1100, it is apparent that repairing or updating the printer controller 1104 is a complex and costly procedure that is not accessible to the average computer user. It would be desirable for a mechanism that allows the user to be able to easily access, configure, and upgrade the formatter. Unfortunately, this is not possible with the prior art printer system configuration.
Manufacturers of laser printers have typically focused their efforts at reducing costs by employing one of two different approaches. Unfortunately, these approaches, as will be described hereinafter, offer only minimal improvements, often inject inefficiencies in other areas, which often negate any improvements gained by the approach, and do not address the inefficiencies of the current upgrade solution.
The first prior art approach is to super-integrate the components of the printer formatter. This approach can reduce system costs. However, if the super-integrated chip is designed onto an embedded formatter (i.e., a formatter embedded into the print engine), then the development schedule for the formatter chip is shortened by the manufacturing lead-time of the print engine.
Additionally, it is difficult to integrate all the functional blocks of the formatter (e.g., the processor, RAM, ROM, and interface) into a single integrated circuit. Typically, it is the size of the ROM that is the limiting factor. Accordingly, it is desirable to have a mechanism to reduce the amount of code that needs to be stored in the ROM, so that a higher level of integration can be achieved.
Second, upgrades in formatter functionality are difficult and costly to perform by the printer manufacturer. For example, if a user desires a new functionality, since the formatter is within the printer enclosure, and it is not easily accessible to the user, the users' options are very limited.
The first option is to buy a new printer with a new formatter integrated circuit having the new function. The second option is to send the printer to the print engine manufacturer, who in turn installs a new formatter integrated circuit in the printer and ensures compatibility with the print engine. Even then, the print engine manufacturer often times needs to perform extensive re-work on the printer to install the new formatter. As can be appreciated, this upgrade solution is not very efficient and relatively costly.
Another attempt to reduce costs and increase efficiency is to integrate the printer formatter with other electronics internal to the printer. These electronics can include the laser controller, which is commonly referred to as the “DC controller.” Unfortunately, this approach suffers from several disadvantages.
First, although this approach reduces costs, the approach also can increase costs of developing and testing the DC controller because the printed circuit board technology is not robust enough for the digital printer formatter.
Second, the components of a laser printer are highly dependent on each other. For example, the DC controller, the laser print engine, and the digital printer formatter are connected together in a particular format and are dependent upon each other. Consequently, the printer formatter cannot be replaced without requiring corresponding changes to the other components.
Based on the foregoing, it is desirable to provide a printer formatter that is external to the printer enclosure, easily removable, easily configurable, and that overcomes the disadvantages discussed above.